How Wellnesse Built a 7-Figure Clean Oral Care Brand in a Crowded Market
- Stanley Igboanugo
- 3 days ago
- 29 min read
In this episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, Jon LaClare sits down with Seth Spears, founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Wellnesse, a B Corp-certified brand that has sold over 1 million units in the highly competitive personal care space.
Seth shares how he transitioned from building a content-driven audience over more than a decade into launching a product-based business—and why that foundation gave him a powerful advantage when entering the market. He explains how Wellnesse identified a major gap in personal care: products that are both clean and high-performing, without sacrificing one for the other.
The conversation dives into the realities of building a brand in a crowded category, including how to differentiate beyond price, why most competitors fail to build long-term trust, and how storytelling, product quality, and consistency drive sustainable growth. Seth also breaks down how direct-to-consumer strategy enabled premium pricing, why customer feedback remains central to product development, and how the brand continues to evolve through testing and iteration.
If you're building a product brand—especially in health, wellness, or any saturated market—this episode offers a practical blueprint for standing out, earning trust, and scaling with purpose.
In today’s episode of the Harvest Growth Podcast, we’ll cover:
How Wellnesse sold over 1 million units in a competitive category
Why “clean” products often fail—and how to fix that
The advantage of building an audience before launching a product
How to differentiate when competitors are copying your space
Why brand > product for long-term success
How to use customer feedback to drive product innovation
The role of direct-to-consumer in premium pricing strategy
Why most founders fail by chasing profits instead of purpose
Lessons learned from scaling too fast and hiring too early
How consistent storytelling builds trust and lifetime customers
You can listen to the full interview on your desktop or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Or, click to watch the full video interview here!
If you’re launching or scaling a product brand and want to stand out in a crowded market, this episode delivers actionable insights you can apply immediately.
To learn more about Wellnesse, visit Wellnesse.com or search for their products online.
Interested in launching or scaling your own product? Visit HarvestGrowth.com to book a free consultation and learn how our team has helped generate over $2 billion in product sales.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and leave a review — and we’ll see you next time on the Harvest Growth Podcast.
Prefer reading instead of listening? Read the full transcript here!
[00:00:00] Jon LaClare: My guest today built a brand that has sold more than 1 million units in the crowded health and wellness space. Learn how they built traction in a competitive category, what it takes to earn trust when customers have endless options and the marketing and growth lessons that help them scale. If you're looking for practical ideas, you can apply to your own business.
[00:00:19] Jon LaClare: This is a great conversation to learn from.
[00:00:22] Announcer: Harvest the growth potential of your product or service as we share stories and strategies that'll make your competitors nervous. Now, here's the host of the Harvest Growth Podcast, John LaClare.
[00:00:38] Jon LaClare: Over the past 20 years, our team has helped launch and grow hundreds of consumer products generating more than $2 billion in revenue for our clients. On this show, we break down what actually works in product marketing, real stories, real strategies, and lessons you can put to work in your business right away.
[00:00:54] Jon LaClare: Whether you're getting ready to launch or looking to scale what's already working, you're in the right place.
[00:01:00] Jon LaClare: Right? Let's jump in. I'm excited to have on the show with us today, Seth. Seth Spears. He is the founder and chief visionary officer of Ness. You can find them at wellness. Dot com. It's Wellnesse.com.
[00:01:16] Jon LaClare: As always, it's in the show notes, so we'll talk about that. But, uh, first of all, Seth, thanks for joining the show to
[00:01:22] Seth Spears: Hi John. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:23] Jon LaClare: Yeah, no, I'm super excited to have you on board. Can you talk to us about wellness, the brand, you know, kind of the history so we know what the product is for the listeners that may not have heard of your product before your brand.
[00:01:33] Seth Spears: Sure. Yeah, so wellness is a B Corp certified brand of all natural and non-toxic personal care products. And primarily we play in the oral care space. So we started in 2020, uh, the beginning of 2020, which is a very interesting time to launch a new company. But, um, I think it actually probably helped us since we are primarily direct to consumer and everyone, everything went online.
[00:01:56] Seth Spears: Because of the lockdowns with, uh, COVID and such. Uh, so it's been a very fun project over the past six years, and we make the cleanest oral care products on the market.
[00:02:05] Jon LaClare: And for those of our audience that may not know what this is, what, what do you mean by B Corp? What does that mean for your business?
[00:02:10] Seth Spears: Yeah, so B Corporation is a certification that's very hard to get. It is one of the, um, one of the most challenging certifications that has to do with things outside of just profit. So certified B Corporation means that you're looking at your employee welfare, environmental factors, um, all those things that are outside that.
[00:02:30] Seth Spears: I feel like should just be standard because we're doing the right things, because it's the right thing to do, not just because you're making something off of it. I think a lot of companies, they, it's all about just how can we maximize profits as much as possible at the expense of maybe, uh, our customers.
[00:02:45] Seth Spears: Maybe it's our employees, maybe it's the environment. There's so many different factors that, uh, that. That they should be looking at that most aren't. And so B Corporation looks at all those in a more holistic fashion and you get like a scoring, uh, system based on it. And, uh, and we're proud to be B Corp certified.
[00:03:02] Jon LaClare: Yeah, no, absolutely. It's, it's kind of brings in purpose to the business, right? Of course. You're trying to succeed as a business and share great products with people. But doing it in a, a helpful way to the environment, to people, to everything connected and it, it certainly means a lot. Putting purpose behind the business.
[00:03:18] Jon LaClare: And we'll talk about that a little more in depth as we get it further into the conversation. Before that, I wanna talk about the success of the business, just so, again, our audience that may or may not have heard of Will Ness yet as a brand. You mentioned how 2020. Timing was certainly a unique time to launch a product.
[00:03:33] Jon LaClare: Great time for direct to consumer as you said, but you still have to have a great product to succeed and to continue succeeding, right? So it in some ways it was easier for a few months, but this is years later and you've really grown this, this brand quite a bit. As it says in your website, you've sold over a million tubes.
[00:03:49] Jon LaClare: To date and counting. Right. It's still continuing to grow tremendously. If you think back to that time, what gap in the market were you trying to fill? So there's, you know, toothpaste, oral care products, there's hair care products that, you know, there's a lot of 'em on the market, right? There's a lot of competition, but you are succeeding because you stand out as different, you know, what gap are you filling or were you trying to fill early on?
[00:04:10] Seth Spears: So, personal care products, typically the ones that we use, it's just a habit. It's the ones we grew up using that maybe our mom bought, our spouse bought, um, that it's just been in our family for generations. Um, think like the Proctor and Gamble brands. Um, and those are all products of really good marketing over the years.
[00:04:29] Seth Spears: And so it's just become a habit. However, most of them are not using the best ingredients. Most of them are using toxic ingredients that are actually really bad for you. If you look on the labels for a lot of these things, it's not something that you would actually, uh, wanna be putting on your body. What you're putting on your body.
[00:04:44] Seth Spears: You're putting in your body. So our whole mission is to create the highest quality products that we can, that are as safe and also as efficacious. They work better than all those conventional alternatives that are not good for you. So everything that we do, we wanna make sure that it, uh, it works, it works really well as good or better than the conventional alternatives without those toxic ingredients that are.
[00:05:04] Seth Spears: We should not be putting on our body or even having in our house, for example, like our toothpaste, well, most other toothpaste, most of the conventional brands, they have a poison control label on them. Why? Because the ingredients that they have, especially like fluoride, sodium, lal, sulfate, um, some of these things are really, really bad for you.
[00:05:21] Seth Spears: And if your kid gets into it, you consume too much. You gotta call
poison control because it's very harmful. All of ours, we use only safe, beneficial ingredients that work really well, and that if you consume a lot of it, it's not gonna hurt you. Granted, it's just gonna go through you and you're gonna excrete it, but uh, you don't have to call poison control.
[00:05:39] Seth Spears: I mean, that should just be par for the course though. But unfortunately, most companies don't do that. And so we really stepped into the market and decided to create the company, uh, realizing that there was a big gap as far as clean personal care products that actually worked. Most of the green products, the clean, healthy organic ones, they were healthier for you, but they didn't work that well.
[00:05:59] Seth Spears: So we just saw an opportunity where if we can create high quality products that work with clean ingredients, then that'll be a winner.
[00:06:07] Jon LaClare: I love that. I think it, it's missed so often where a lot of products that talk about helping you or being more healthy, organic green, what whatever, you know, field or category you might be in and how you're trying to be better, they often sacrifice quality or performance.
[00:06:22] Jon LaClare: And that's, I it's a great marriage of the two that you've got great performance, but also you're helping people and you're, you know, without these harmful chemicals in there. And you talk on your website specifically a lot about. Mission and values and purpose behind the business as well. And that's another place where I think a lot of businesses have it forward facing only, right when maybe they share their mission and values.
[00:06:42] Jon LaClare: Maybe they've got something on the wall in their office, but it doesn't necessarily drive what they do on a daily basis. How has that been helpful to you to have this kind of core purpose and mission behind your business to really be a core of what you are as a business, not just outward facing only.
[00:06:59] Seth Spears: I mean, it really impacts everything that we do.
[00:07:01] Seth Spears: I mean, people, planet profit in that order is what we focus on. Yeah. We wanna make money. Yeah. We're a company, we're in business to turn a profit, but we also wanna do it the right way. We wanna make sure that we are creating products for people very specifically, they work well, and that they're not, they're not hurting them, um, that they're beneficial.
[00:07:19] Seth Spears: And also, um, planet, we wanna make sure that we're not. Putting toxic chemicals into the environment as well, um, that we use, that we, uh, use materials that have the least environmental impact. And then thirdly, um, we do have to turn a profit as well. So our products are priced higher than a lot of the others out there, and that's because our ingredients are so much better and we are doing the.
[00:07:40] Seth Spears: Things the right way. Um, you know, there's the drastic difference between like a three or $4 tube of toothpaste that you can get from Crest or Colgate as opposed to a $15 tube, uh, from wellness. Uh, but again, ours stands head and shoulders above theirs. Um, no pun intended there, but, um, but yeah, ours, uh, just work so much better.
[00:07:58] Seth Spears: All of our ingredients are very beneficial and so we try to focus on doing the right things.
[00:08:03] Jon LaClare: Yeah, I, I'm glad you ended with that. And it kind of shared the profit motive. 'cause again, I think with purpose driven companies, you've gotta have that in part of your mind as well, whether it's a written purpose or not.
[00:08:13] Jon LaClare: But without profits, you can't affect your purpose, right? Profits help grow your business to be able to help more people at the end of the day, right? The more you can sell, the more you can help. You can have the best product in the world, but if you're not making money at it and you're not able to market it and no one knows about it, then you can't really help anybody.
[00:08:31] Jon LaClare: So I think that's an important part of the mission.
[00:08:34] Seth Spears: If you're not making money, then you don't have a business, you have a hobby. And, you know, there's a lot of other hobbies that are way more fun than just creating products and selling 'em at a loss. So, or just, you know, you know, breaking even. So you do have to be profitable and that's how we're able to impact people's lives in a positive way as well.
[00:08:50] Seth Spears: I, all of all the members on my team, all my employees, um, you know, I'm able to help, help them, um, provide a living for themselves, for their family. And so it gives them meaning and purpose as well. Um, I think work is something, it's part of what we do, and having a purpose and something that's bigger than yourself, that's really, really important.
[00:09:09] Seth Spears: I feel like as a society, we've gotten away from that in a lot of ways. We're just about leisure and how can we make things as simple and as easy as possible, and especially with AI coming about and just like things are gonna be so easy and now we're gonna have a universal basic income and all these things.
[00:09:23] Seth Spears: But what that conversation is missing is that we were designed for something bigger than ourselves. We have to have a purpose in something that we're striving for, something, we're trying to create something, we're trying to do something that is more than just us. And without that. Our lives lose meaning and like they're pointless.
[00:09:40] Seth Spears: So everything that we do, we realize that there is a bigger mission. We want to help people to live better lives, to take care of themselves and improve their health and the health of their families. And so that's why, um, everything that we do is structured around that.
[00:09:54] Jon LaClare: I love, love, love that. So well put, you talked about, so oral care, hair care, other categories you're getting into.
[00:10:00] Jon LaClare: You started with oral care. That's the, I think the biggest part of your business. Why? Why there? So there's so many categories that really you walk down the grocery store aisle, you could flip over any personal care or frankly, food item. And there's chemicals in there that we probably don't want in our bodies, right?
[00:10:14] Jon LaClare: So there's a lot of opportunity. What brought you to oral care as sort of a first step as a company?
[00:10:19] Seth Spears: Well, so we didn't actually start with oral care. We started with oral hair and skincare. So all three, uh, kind of simultaneously or within the first year. Um, and it's just that oral care is what's taken off more than anything else.
[00:10:31] Seth Spears: And I think part of the reason is everyone's mouth just are pretty similar. Yeah, the pH is gonna be a little bit different. There's gonna be some slight differences, but it's not gonna have a drastic difference, my mouth to your mouth as far as the type of toothpaste that we're using. How, as opposed to our skin and our hair.
[00:10:47] Seth Spears: Some people have oily hair, some people have drier hair, some people have oiler skin or drier skin, and so there's a lot of discrepancies or differences just based on each person and their own biochemistry and just, and so we found that oral care has just taken off a lot more than. Uh, skin and hair. And so we just focus on that because of it.
[00:11:07] Seth Spears: Uh, so we've reduced a lot of our skews in those other other channels, um, for, for hair and skin, just because they haven't done as well as the oral. And also it's just when you see there's the biggest opportunity in one. One channel or one avenue, you run with that. And so that's what we focus on in the past few years.
[00:11:25] Jon LaClare: So, uh, let me reframe that question. I'm glad you brought up a and really specified how you, it's different than I thought from your, your very early days of your business. Launching all three at one is a, is a sort of unique decision as well. So a lot of companies will start with one product, grow slowly, then expand beyond to others.
[00:11:40] Jon LaClare: So there had to be a decision going in, 'cause I'm sure it's obviously a lot more work, not just different products, but completely different categories. Launching at the same time. You know, I, we can fast forward to today where, you know, it'd be easy to say, well, if you launched in, in skincare or hair first, your business and only that, right?
[00:11:56] Jon LaClare: Your business would be a lot smaller today because you would've missed the oral care opportunity that you didn't know right at the time. So sometimes launching gets those answers. That's part of it. But how, walk me through, walk us through what went through your development process to want to launch in three separate categories at the same time In the early days.
[00:12:12] Seth Spears: Yeah, so a little bit of history. The company actually started, I had another company in the health and wellness space. And so it was more education focused. Um, and so we had tutorials on how to make your own personal care products, so oral hair, skin shampoo, and conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste. And so these were DIY tutorials on how to make your own personal care products.
[00:12:33] Seth Spears: 'cause most things didn't work well if they were naturally oriented and cleaner ingredients. And so we had a very large audience and that audience really liked these tutorials. They liked the products. But they just got tired of making themselves, you know, we're kind of wired for convenience and we want things, we'd rather just order it off Amazon or go to the store and pick it up, as opposed to going ordering ingredients and going in the kitchen and mixing things together and making my own toothpaste or shampoo or deodorant or whatever.
[00:13:01] Seth Spears: You can do it. And some people like that, but most people don't. They'd rather just go to the store and pick it up. And so based on customer feedback, that's how we determine what products to launch with. And it seemed like those three categories are the ones that no matter how health oriented someone is, um, no matter how much they're working out or improve their diet, they're eating clean.
[00:13:19] Seth Spears: Those personal care products are the ones that they still stick with. Those that are a little bit more toxic or not as good for you just because they work. Those are harder to find really clean. Um. Products that work very well. And so we realized there's an opportunity and that if we can crack this nut of creating really high quality products that work well with clean ingredients, then that's a winner.
[00:13:41] Seth Spears: So that's why we went in those three directions, and then it just, it scaled down from, from those three into more, uh, just. Focused on oral care. Eight over 80% of our business is, is in the oral care space now.
[00:13:53] Jon LaClare: Got it. So rewinding to the pre-product times, how long were you running this content business, we can call it that, where you had, you know, building up your audience and educating them? How long was that around before the product launched?
[00:14:05] Seth Spears: Um, it started 2009 officially, so, uh, like 11 years, 12.
[00:14:13] Jon LaClare: So au it's a unique change. Also audience first and then product and learning from the audience to know what products to develop. And of course, having that connection can help you get off, off the ground as a business as well.
[00:14:24] Jon LaClare: So that's a, that's a great way to do it. Um, for those that might be running content businesses, for example, and then trying for, trying to productize those. You, you've talked a lot about the marriage of quality and, um, help to, you know, to help to people, profits. Sorry, it's the third one. People profits, plant Planet.
[00:14:45] Jon LaClare: Thank you. How can I forget? So people, planet profits, so helping you know, a good health, healthy, good for you product, but also that works. That's always the challenge. How did you overcome that? Right? So how did you, you mentioned more expensive ingredients is certainly part of it, but not the, maybe the only answer. So how do you have such good performance and still be good for people on planet?
[00:15:07] Seth Spears: So. A lot of the legacy companies like the p and gs and all of those, they've been in the business so long. Um, they're publicly traded companies. They're large, multi multimillion billion dollar companies. Um, they have economies of scale.
[00:15:25] Seth Spears: But they're also maximizing profits and so they're using the cheapest ingredients possible that they can, so that they can maximize those profits because they're share, they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders to make as much money as possible. At the expense of those shareholders who are using their products, in my opinion, um, because that's, those are conflicting goals.
[00:15:47] Seth Spears: So we wanted to do it differently. We said, we're not gonna focus just on making as much money as possible because by so doing, using the cheapest ingredients, using things that are toxic or not good for you, what's our unique selling proposition then how are we gonna compete against those big boys?
[00:16:02] Seth Spears: Because they're looking at trying to. It's like chasing the Walmarts of the world. We want the cheapest possible possible product that we can, but those are not our customers. We want the customer who wants the cleanest products, those that work the best, those that are elevated, and that it says something about them.
[00:16:18] Seth Spears: I mean, and it goes back to branding, creating a brand that it has a meaning behind it. It has a message. It stands for something. And so we're gonna stand for health. We're gonna stand for creating the cleanest, most efficacious products that we can and not being the bottom of the barrel cheapest. And so because we had an audience and they already knew our standards of quality and what we were looking for, and recommending other products that were, were based on how well they work and how clean they are, uh, we had a built in audience that we could launch to.
[00:16:46] Seth Spears: And that really set the stage for helping us to, um, to get our first, first subscribers, first customers, and grow from there.
[00:16:54] Jon LaClare: You certainly can be stuck with a business model. Like you talk about p and g being in retail, being in the Walmarts and grocery stores of the world, you know, launching a more expensive product becomes very difficult for them, right?
[00:17:04] Jon LaClare: It's just a different audience, a d different business structure. You know, I kind of, I kind of think back to my early days with Oxyclean. You know, this is 20 odd years ago, where in the very early days of Oxyclean, it was kind of one of the first. What we call direct to consumer business. That phrase didn't exist back then, right?
[00:17:19] Jon LaClare: It was infomercials is really what they ran, but it was the same idea selling direct to consumers. The first major product that was sold into Walmart was $40, and it's the same tub. Size that you get today for, I think it's six bucks or something, right? Costs have come down, but back in the day, you know, it started again with that direct to consumer so we could sell to our audience that loved us, loved the personality of the product, also the performance.
[00:17:44] Jon LaClare: And it was a cleaner product than many of those in the market at the time. And eventually, you know, Walmart pushed it down, right? But even in the early days, they allowed it because there was that connection. But frankly, the only reason we could charge a higher price, one is it cost a lot more, right? It was smaller volumes.
[00:17:59] Jon LaClare: It's just, you know, it's the nature of it. But you could sell because it was direct to consumer that that same approach, it looks different, but it exists today as it does in your business, right? You can sell at a higher price point when you have a direct connection to your audience, and there's a reason for it, right?
[00:18:15] Jon LaClare: We can't just have a higher price for the same product. But if you're giving great performance and you're giving benefits that consumers want, that aren't available for the cheap tubes of tube toothpaste. That that gives that ability to raise your prices. It's one of the beauties, I would say, of of the direct to consumer business as well.
[00:18:32] Jon LaClare: You've talked a lot about your audience, so you know there was that early 10, 11 years before you launched your products where you're building an audience. How has that changed now? So you had the audience that helped you figure out what products to launch and kind of get it off the ground. How do you use your audience now?
[00:18:49] Jon LaClare: So, connection to whether it's consumers or content consumers to learn what to change or what to bring out next. How do you, how do you involve your audience in, in growing the business?
[00:19:01] Seth Spears: That's a great question. So the audience, you know, it started from that, that initial audience I had in the other, other health business.
[00:19:08] Seth Spears: Um, but it has grown a lot over the years. And now our, our customer acquisition channels is coming from paid ads primarily some affiliates and influencers as well, but people that are seeing us out there and word of mouth and such. Um, but we we're always looking for feedback from our customers. And so asking, asking them to leave reviews or give us feedback and we will poll them.
[00:19:29] Seth Spears: Um, our email list will ask questions and say, Hey, respond to this. And what do you, what do you think about this, this product, this flavor of toothpaste? What are you looking for? Where's your pain point? And we're always doing market research to see what else is out there and what's not out there, and how can we differentiate.
[00:19:43] Seth Spears: So it's kind of an interactive process with our customers and just asking them what they're looking for, just seeing where there's pain points in the market,
whether that's. Other products and like, what are we, what are we looking for? I guess one of my big skill sets is seeing opportunities, seeing what's out there in the market and what's not there, and where is there an opportunity for us to hop in and differentiate in some way?
[00:20:05] Seth Spears: Um, because different is just, is better. You know, people, they like to be, customers like to find something in the early stages and to stick with them. I mean, think about like if you're, if there's a band that you like and you probably like to brag about how you've been listening to them for. X number of years before they got famous.
[00:20:22] Seth Spears: You know, I know I do that. I think a lot of people do it. And so there's something to be said for a lot of people, a lot of customers, when they find you at the early stage and they stick with you for a long time, and then they become those loyal customers. And then when they're able to help and give feedback around maybe a new flavor of toothpaste or a new product and you know, and whatever the category is, um, that we kind of work together on that, then they feel like they're invested.
[00:20:46] Seth Spears: And that's how you keep customers for life.
[00:20:49] Jon LaClare: Yeah. And once they come in, as you mentioned, they, they do stay for life. They stay for a long time. Once you've experienced the product, the hard part is for a more expensive product. There's reasons for it, right? But it's a, you gotta make that decision to make the jump and buy the first product.
[00:21:03] Jon LaClare: So how do you. Generate credibility. So again, in the early days you had this audience, this email list, but today in paid media, when you're running a paid ad for people, some of them have never heard of you, how do you get them to trust you to make that first purchase?
[00:21:18] Seth Spears: Yeah, that's a great question. Um, it's getting harder.
[00:21:23] Seth Spears: It's definitely we're trying to differentiate constantly and we're testing out a lot of different things when it comes to our ads to see what works, to see what sticks. There's just so much noise in the marketplace that it's taking multiple hits and seeing us multiple times before someone is willing to actually make a purchase.
[00:21:37] Seth Spears: Um. It's there, there's a, a psychology term and the name is escaping me. But it's like the more you see something, the more familiar it becomes, then it becomes a, a friendlier relationship and you're more likely to want to interact with that, whether that's a friendship, a relationship, um, or a product that you want to purchase.
[00:21:54] Seth Spears: Um, so one of the, our best performing ads over the years has been an us versus them type ad. Where we're comparing ourselves and our ingredients to our competitors and how we differentiate both on the ingredients, like how well it works and things like that. So, but again, it is getting harder and harder and so it's just testing out lots of different things, lots of different angles, and our messaging and positioning.
[00:22:17] Seth Spears: Um, and just focusing on just doing the right things long enough consistently as far as the brand goes, uh, and testing things out during stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Uh, and then after time. I think after a while people see you enough time, so like I keep seeing them all over the place, so I might as well just try it out and see.
[00:22:32] Seth Spears: And even if it is more expensive, just. So as an example, I was researching suits. Like I'm like, I need a new suit. I don't wear a suit a lot, but every now and then, and so I was doing some research and then I'm getting retargeted with everything suits like from this company and that company. And then, so there's one I just kept seeing.
[00:22:48] Seth Spears: I'm like, huh, this is interesting. So I did a deep dive and started researching and. Reading reviews and comparing, and I ended up buying one, and now I'm just seeing suits left and right on all my social media, on Google, on everything, making recommendations. And even this one company that I ended up purchasing from, which I haven't even gotten it in yet, so I don't know how it is, but I'm seeing more and more of their ads constantly.
[00:23:07] Seth Spears: So that's what we're seeing, like on the internet, things are just following you around when you get interested in something and you click on one ad. You're gonna see more from them and more from competitors also. Um, so it's just seeing you out there on ads, on podcasts, on social media, um, on all different types of media.
[00:23:26] Seth Spears: So it's just a process.
[00:23:29] Jon LaClare: And I, I think a similar question is what do you think most marketers that are struggling in the health and wellness space are getting wrong? So what have you, anything else stand out? You've shared some great tidbits of advice of what's working and anything else stand out that's really helped you to be successful in the marketplace?
[00:23:44] Seth Spears: Unfortunately, I think most people in the market now, they're doing it for the wrong reasons. They just see dollar signs and they see how much the market is growing, and so they're getting in because they see an opportunity. And so there's a lot of greenwashing in the space. There's a lot of people that just hop in because they see dollar signs, but they're in it for the wrong reasons and not trying to actually make a difference.
[00:24:02] Seth Spears: They're not trying to create the highest quality products they can. They're trying to maximize profits while positioning themselves as doing it for the right reasons and doing the right things. But in reality, it's not like there's, I have so many stories this happening of people ripping off other people of just.
[00:24:18] Seth Spears: Cop blatant copying. Um, they just see a market opportunity and then they're going after it because of it, but they're not doing it because they're trying to change lives. They're trying to create the highest quality products. I think that's what it is. It's so many copycats and especially it's so easy to launch something.
[00:24:32] Seth Spears: I think it's hard to build something and grow it long term. But it's really easy to go to market. Uh, so we've differentiated ourselves by all of our formulations, everything that we have. It's ours, it's our own, it's our own formulations, our own designs. Everything that we do is unique to us. And so we wanna differentiate ourselves by being better, by being unique and different, and not just like looking at someone else and it's like, oh, we're gonna copy that.
[00:24:58] Seth Spears: I don't wanna copy anybody. I wanna be unique and do our own thing and be better than everyone else.
[00:25:04] Jon LaClare: Yeah, I equate it to sort of thinking about a brand versus a product similar to what you're saying. Not the exact same thing, but you know, there's so many people out there just trying to make a buck, they make a product.
[00:25:14] Jon LaClare: Right. And maybe it's successful, you know, if they're copying a successful business, they might make some money at it in the short term at least. But when you're building a story behind it, right, and you're, you have purpose behind yours, but it doesn't have to be that, it can be something else. It is really creating a brand.
[00:25:29] Jon LaClare: And when you've got a brand, even if it starts off as a single product, but if there's a reason behind it that your audience can connect with, they're gonna stay with you longer because they connect with you. And when you launch other products down down the line, they'll, they'll join on and buy those as well.
[00:25:45] Jon LaClare: Again, because they're connected to you. It's, it's really that brand versus product is maybe one other way to say I think similar, uh, to what you're saying.
[00:25:53] Seth Spears: 100%. I totally agree with that. And a brand is a story. It's a story that we're telling ourselves about who we are when we use that product, and so my formula for success has always been do the right things long enough consistently.
[00:26:06] Seth Spears: And I think that really is brand building. It's we're gonna do the right things. We're gonna create the right products, we're gonna do it long enough, we're gonna be consistent with it, and that's how we win. That's how we win the hearts and minds and get those long term lifetime customers. Because there are so many people that they're in it for the wrong reasons and they're just trying to make a quick buck, but they're not thinking long term.
[00:26:25] Seth Spears: They're not building a brand, they're just creating a product and selling it. But that's not gonna last because people, they don't identify with it. They just see it as a product that they're using. It's like if you go to Walmart and just pick up whatever's on the shelf or something, you're not, it's not like a, it's not like a brand.
[00:26:40] Seth Spears: It's not, you don't have an identity around it. And a brand is more than just a logo. It's the look, the feel, the smell, the taste. It's something that you're, it lights up your senses and you have an association around that. You have a brand, I have a brand. We all have a personal brand. So what does that mean?
[00:26:56] Seth Spears: But even like much bigger companies, like if you see Nike or Spotify or Google or any, any company where they've been around for a long time and they're, they're a brand, what is that association that we have with them? What is the story that we tell ourselves when we use that product, when we purchase from them?
[00:27:14] Seth Spears: The more we can do that ourselves with wellness, the more we can create that brand. So there's an association, a positive association for our customers. That's how we keep those customers long term and how we grow and how we win.
[00:27:26] Jon LaClare: And you know, you mentioned the packaging, the logo, when a lot of people think branding, they think that's where it ends, right?
[00:27:31] Jon LaClare: It's about the colors, the logo, the look and feel, but there's really the story behind it as well. So it is part of it, for sure. Right. Everything you just said, the smell, the taste, the feel of the packaging. Absolutely. Part of it. On top of that, as you've also said is, is the story behind it. So how do you today, now as a much bigger company, still connect with your audience and, and.
[00:27:52] Jon LaClare: This way to tell story is to educate them. To connect them to who you are, as opposed to just seeing a video buying and moving on.
[00:28:00] Seth Spears: I mean, I still think we're so early in the game and we're still such a young company. Like I feel like we're still in startup mode. Um, you know, we're not nearly where we want to be.
[00:28:09] Seth Spears: There's, there's so much opportunity in the market, so it's just.
Constant. It's a, it's a constant storytelling. It's the story that we're leading with of why our products are better, like our, our ingredients, like how you feel when you're using them. Like our toothpaste for example. We avoid all those toxic ingredients that most others.
[00:28:28] Seth Spears: Use like we no fluoride, no glycerin, no sodium, oral sulfate, none of these things that a lot of our competitors use. And we use Hydroxyapatite, which is a naturally occurring mineral that helps to remineralize your teeth. So if you have cavities and soft spots, it will help repair them. It's also whitening.
[00:28:44] Seth Spears: It helps improve the oral microbiome. We do all of these things that will, that's the story we're telling of why we're better. And so when someone sees us like, oh, I've seen that. Oh, I've used it. Oh, I. I read a review about it, like somebody repaired their cavity from it, they went to the dentist, and now the that cavity that they have is gone.
[00:29:00] Seth Spears: Their teeth are so much wider. And so the more you can do that and get those positive emotions, that's, that's what it takes. And it's just a consistent process of doing that over time and just tweaking our messaging, tweaking the storytelling, and also looking at different audiences over time because what got us here won't get us there.
[00:29:17] Seth Spears: And so you have to do those right things long and consistently while also testing and tweaking things.
[00:29:23] Jon LaClare: Steph, this, this has been a lot of fun. I have one more question for you, actually. Two. So I'll, I'll ask if there's, if I missed anything at the end, but before I do, if you could look back. I, is there one thing you might do differently if you were starting wellness as a new company today?
[00:29:36] Seth Spears: There's a lot of things. There's a lot of missteps early on, um, there was mishires, there was spending money on agencies that were not worth it. Um, really inspecting what I expect. Um, trying to be too competitive. Trying to, trying to grow too fast and not just, not just grow slow, but, but put the infrastructure in place, um, the way it needs to be for long-term sustainable growth.
[00:30:06] Seth Spears: Um, yeah, I think those are the biggest things. Uh, I, you know, look at like the products that we launch and what I've launched with less or launched with more. I, I, I think there's always lessons to be learned. So I, from a product side, no, I think we did it the right way and we learned a lot from it. But I think it's more, um, in the bigger scheme as far as like the administration side and the personnel side and who are hiring and, um, just making sure that that's on point, because that has a lot of effect long term.
[00:30:40] Jon LaClare: I like that. One of the last things you said was the product and getting that right is so important. You can anybody, I shouldn't say it, not anybody, right? But you can grow a business with a mediocre product and you can grow fast. But to have longevity behind that and really build a brand behind it, you've gotta have a.
[00:30:55] Jon LaClare: Quality and performance. You've gotta have a product that really works, that meets the promises you're making. And because of that, I agree. I love how you said you're, you, you, you've had great success in five or six years since you originally launched, but this is the start of the journey and you'll continue to grow because you've got a great product or line of products behind your brand.
[00:31:12] Jon LaClare: All right. Last question I have is, is there anything I didn't ask that you think would be helpful for our audience?
[00:31:18] Seth Spears: I've never had anyone ask that question before. Um. No, I think, uh, if you're interested in, um, in personal care products that are better for you, that they work better than those conventional and often toxic alternatives check out wild because we're doing our very best to make the cleanest products on the market that work better than everything else out there.
[00:31:39] Seth Spears: And, uh, we hope that everyone will give us a try and check it out. And if it's not, there's lots of other companies out there.
[00:31:48] Jon LaClare: Well put, and I'll add my thoughts to that as well. So I, you know, I'm an interviewer today, but also a user of wellness products and they're fantastic. So I encourage your audience, check it out, you can find it at wellnesse.com and that's well at W-E-L-L-N-E-S-E.com or on Amazon, these products as well. If you're an Amazon shopper, go check it out. As always, it's in the show notes, the url, so if you're driving, check it out later on any of our platforms or harvest growth podcast.com and be able to find the, the show notes behind that. Well, if you wanna take the next step in growing your business, visit harvest growth.com to connect with our team.
[00:32:26] Jon LaClare: Book a one-on-one conversation focused on your business. Well, thanks for listening today, and we'll see you in the next episode.
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